Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

COMMENT ON 1 THESS. v. 18.

In every thing give thanks.

"THERE is a tradition, that, in the planting of New England, the first settlers met with many difficulties and hardships, as is generally the case when a civilized people attempt establishing themselves in a wilderness country. Being men of piety, they sought relief from Heaven, by laying their wants and distresses before the Lord in frequent set days of fasting and prayer. Constant meditation and discourse on their difficul ties kept their minds gloomy and discontented; and, like the children of Israel, there were many disposed to return to that Egypt, which persecution had induced them to abandon. At length, when it was proposed in one of their assemblies to proclaim a fast, a farmer, of plain sense, rose, and remarked, that the inconveniences they suffered, and concerning which they had so often wearied Heaven with their complaints, were not so great as they might have expected; and were diminishing every day as the colony strengthened; that the earth began to reward their toil, and to furnish liberally for their subsistence; that the seas and rivers were full of fish, the air sweet, the climate healthy, and, above all, that they were in the full enjoyment of their civil and religious liberty; he, therefore, thought, that reflecting and conversing on these subjects would be more comfortable, as tending more to make them contented with their situation; and that it would be more becoming the gratitude they owed to the Divine Being, if, instead of a fast, they should appoint a thanksgiving. His advice was taken, and, from that day to this, they have, in every year, observed circumstances of public felicity sufficient to furnish cause for a thanksgiving-day; which is, therefore, constantly ordered and religiously observed." Dr. B. Franklin's Essays.

TRACTS.

A minister who went to preach in a country village, accompanied by a few friends, intended to take a number of tracts with him, but forgot it: they had, however, three or four, which they distributed, and found, in a short time, a great part of the congregation collected around a person who was reading one of them. This put him on thinking that if those pence which are often idly thrown away, were employed in purchasing tracts, much good might be done. He adds, as a proof how much they are needed, that, conversing with a lad, who was left in care of some cattle, he asked him, Who made the wheat?' &c, he immediately answered, "Farmer Philpot;" and in the same ignorant manner he replied to every question that was put to him! How much then do the poor need thei nstruction that may be communicated by religious tracts!

[ocr errors]

ON REPROVING SIN.

Few things are more difficult than to administer reproof properly; but, while the professed servants of God sometimes need reproof, the avowed servants of Satan need it much more frequently, and on different grounds. One day, a person being in the room of a poor aged Christian woman, and lamenting a want of firmness to reprove the abandoned when travelling, and, as an excuse, having recourse to the hackneyed passage "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine," she seriously and hastily replied, "Oh, Sir! keen and just reproofs are no pearls; were you to talk to a wicked coachman respecting the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost, and the pleasures of communion with God, you would cast pearls before swine, but not in reproving sin." F. F.

[blocks in formation]

I BEG the favour of you to insert the following case of conscience I frequently find in Scripture that Usury is particularly condemned; and that it is represented as the character of a good man, that "he hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase," Ezek. xviii. 8, &c. I wish, therefore, to know how such passages are to be understood; and whether the taking of interest for money, as is. universally practised among us, can be reconciled with the word and will of God?

Q.

IMMORALITY OF CHRISTIANS INJURIOUS TO THE HEATHEN.

BARTHOLOMEW DE LAS CASAS, after giving Charles V. a picture of the cruelties committed in the New World by the Spaniards," This," says he," is the reason why the Indians are so ready to make their mock at the God we worship, and persist so obstinately in their incredulity. They are persuaded that the God of the Christians is the most evil of all Gods, because the Christians who worship him, are the most wicked and corrupt of all inankind.”

Mr. Editor,

THE SPIRITUAL CABINET.

Being obliged by your insertion of my Extract from Mr. Foster in your last, I am emboldened to solicit a like place for the following Extract from the Character of an Atheist. CLIO.

"I WILL imagine only one case more, on which you would emphatically express your compassion, though for one of the most daring beings in the creation, a contemner of God, who explodes his laws by denying his existence.

If you were so unacquainted with mankind, that this character might be announced to you as a rare or singular phenomenon, your conjectures, till you saw and heard the man, at the nature and the extent of the discipline through which he must have advanced, would be led toward something extraordinary : and you might think that the term of that discipline must have been very long, since a quick train of impressions, a short se ries of mental gradations, within the little space of a few months and years, would not seem enough to have matured such supreme and awful heroism. Surely, the creature that thus lifts his voice, and defies all invisible power within the range of infinity, challenging whatever unknown being may hear him, and may appropriate that title of Almighty which is pronounced in scorn, to evince his existence, if he will, by his vengeance, was not as yesterday a little child, that would trem ble and cry at the approach of a diminutive reptile.

But indeed it is heroism no longer, if he knows that there is no God. The wonder then turns on the great process, by which a man could grow to the immense intelligence that can know there is no God. What ages and what lights are requisite for this attainment! This intelligence involves the very attributes of Divinity, while a God is denied; for unless this man is omnipresent, unless he is at this moment in every place in the universe, he cannot know but there may be in some place manifestations of a Deity by which even he would be overpowered. If he does not know absolutely every agent in the universe, the one that he does not know may be God. If he is not himself the chief agent in the universe, and does not know what is so, that which is so may be God. If he is not in absolute possession of all the propositions that constitute universal truth, the one which he wants may be, that there is a God. If he cannot with certainty assign the cause of all that he perceives to exist, that cause may be a God. If he does not know every thing that has been done in the immeasurable ages that are past, some things may have been done by a God. Thus, unless he knows all things, that is, precludes another Deity, by being one himself, he cannot know that the Being, whose existence he rejects, does not exist. But he must know that he does not exist, else he deserves equal contempt and compassion for the temerity with which he firmly avows his rejection and acts accordingly. And yet a man of ordinary age and intelligence may present himself to you with the avowal of being thus distinguished from the crowd; and if he would describe the manner in which he has attained this eminence, you would feel a melancholy interest in contenplating that process of which the result is so portentous.

Foster's Essays, vol. i, p. 64, &c. [A Second Extract from Abp. Leighton in our next.]

[blocks in formation]

THAT part of your Magazine which records the deaths of pious Christians, is, I believe, generally read with considerable interest. We naturally feel a desire to be acquainted with the manner in which our fellow-travellers pass through a scene, over which clouds and darkness seem to hover, and beyond which, nothing but the eye of faith can penetráte. The timid are encouraged when the horrors of the shadow of death are seen to vanish as they are approached; and genuine Christianity seems peculiarly to triumph when its votaries are enabled to shout victory over its last and most formidable of enemies, death and the grave. Perhaps, however, too great stress has sometimes been laid on the manner of passing out of this life into the next. Many have died with the greatest heroism in the worst of causes; and others, supported by truth and virtue, have shrunk from the conflict. The fact is, a man's composure m his last moments depends, perhaps, chiefly on the confidence he feels as to the truth of what he has believed; and as it is possible that error may be sincerely embraced for trath, and that doubts may be felt respecting even truth itself, those who are deluded by error may go off in triumph, while the sun of those who are on the side of truth, may set under a cloud. Hence, however desirable it may be to pass through the valley of the shadow of death, without fearing evil (and this will in general be the case with the true Christian) yet the most satisfactory evidence of a person's being on the right foundation is, his Christian Jife; and, therefore, when very little that is interesting can be said respeeling the departure of the true Christian, it is possible that much may be recorded respecting his Christian course, which would afford many useful lessons for holy living. Such an example, with your permission, I will now record.

Mr. James Stanger, of Long Sutton, in the county of Lincoln, fate of Tydd, St. Mary's) and the

eldest son of the justly celebrated Dr Stanger, of Harringworth, died on the 29th of November, in the 69th year of his age. During the three last years of his life, he was confined by a paralytic stroke, which deprived hira of the use of nearly one half of his body. Though this affliction did not seem to have materially injured his faculties, yet it had evidently weakened their vigour, and threw something of a gloom over his otherwise cheerful mind. Respecting this period, theres fore, of his life, it seems necessary only to observe, that, he maintained an unshaken confidence in God, and never indicated the least doubt of the truth and importance of the doctrines he had long embraced and maintained.

[ocr errors]

In Mr. Stanger's Christian course there were many things deserving of honourable mention. His piety was of the purest cast. It did not burst forth in sudden and rapturous flight, but it burned with an equal and steady flame. His reverence of God and regard for the Scriptures, have been seldom surpassed. He evidently lived under the impression, "Thou God seest me:" and, as for his word, he valued it as his best portion. He adopted as his own, the language of David," The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; - the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes." No man ever heard Mr. Stanger quote a passage of Scripture to sanction an idle remark, or give point to witticism; and he was always hurt when he saw this irreverence in others. This habitual regard for the word of God, prevented him from taking any liberties in the exposition of Scripture; and when he found that a doctrine could not be fairly made out without wresting and torturing the obvious meaning of particular passages, he discarded it as unsound. when the peculiarities of Winchester, and the more dangerous sentiments of the self-named Unitarians made their way into his neighbourhood, they made e bat little impression on

Hence,

his mind, except as they caused him deeply to deplore the mischief they produced upon others.

There was a peculiar cheerfulness in Mr. Stanger's piety. Some excellent characters have been greatly obscured by gloom and an air of melancholy. Constitution or habit, resulting from first impressions and mistaken notions of religion, has occasioned a degree of repulsiveness in their manners, which seemed to countenance the notion, that religion is necessarily connected with gloom and sullen austerities. In Mr. Stanger every thing appeared natural and easy. It was always a pleasure to be in his company :- nobody could come out of his presence with out admiring the man, - few with out being improved by him. His cheerfulness, however, was at the greatest distance from levity. No man ever saw him flighty or trifling. He never accommodated himself to the loose taste of those into whose company he might accidentally fall, nor ever compromised what he considered a single truth, to render him self agreeable to any one.

His candour was not less remarkable than his cheerful piety. He gloried in the right of private judg inent, and was ever backward to suspect error where none was openly avowed. Hence he has been sometimes thought too favourably inclined towards persons who appeared to others to be evidently going off from the truth. At the com mencement of their career of error he did not feel justified in withdrawing from them; and he probably was not aware, at first, of the lengths to which men, "who are given to change," usually go. He lived, however, to see the exceedingly pernicious effects in others of lending an easy ear to the seducing pleas of false teachers; and he deeply deplored them. He was a lover of peace, and, therefore, the wrang. lings, and debates, and schisme, which took place among many of his friends greatly distressed him. Only his most intimate friends knew how heavily these things lay on his ind. He said but littic, but he felt exquisitely, and mourned in seerei places over the breaches in Zion,

Another prominent feature in Mr. Stanger's character was his high sense of propriety and consistency. It would be difficult to find a single instance in which he acted unlike a Christian or himself. He maintained a constant watch over his own spirit, kept a bridle upon his tongue, and, on all occasions, conducted himself with the greatest circumspection. His integrity was inflexible. in all his transactions he was so uniformly upright, that his word was considered as his bond, and he would have suffered any private loss or injury rather than deceive the person who had confided in him. When he has met with instances of duplicity in men professing godliness, he has treated their conduct with marked abhorrence; nor could persons of this description, however highly they might be esteemed by others, or whatever flaming profession of religion they might make, ever gain a place in his friendship. He was himself all of a piece, “an Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile,” and, therefore every thing which approximated to cunning or deception was highly offensive to him.

Mr. Stanger possessed another excellent property, which is not always to be met with in good men, inviolable secresy. Every one has had occasion to deplore the frequent injury which has been done to individual families and churches, by a thoughtless publication of what has been spoken to a few in confidence. The ridiculous vanity of wishing to be thought in possession of information of which others are ignorant, has been the source of incal culable mischlef. No man had less of this vanity than Mr. Stanger, and none could ever reproach him with divulging what nobody but himself and a few others should know. It was unnecessary to give him a caution to observe silence; his own feelings and prudence dictated what was proper, and his own breast was the sacred depository of whatever could affect the comfort or happiness of any individual; from this, not his dearest friends could extort a single hint to gratify curiosity.

Mr. Stanger's character as a neighbour and the head of an affectionate

« ZurückWeiter »